tech planet

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Parking in Paris is a nightmare. No, it's worse -- it's bad enough to keep you awake at night, worrying that your precious machine will be scratched up or simply missing the next morning. Nokia, at least, is trying to make things a little easier with an upcoming service it's just calling Nokia Parking. It's a comprehensive parking database launching in Europe in November that can not only help you find parking but even help you pay for it once you do. More details, and a video demo, after the break.

Let's get this up there first: despite having this demonstrated on a Windows Phone (a Lumia 800, to be exact) this is not an app that Nokia is introducing. Rather, this is a service that, like so many other aspects of Navteq's business, will be licensed to others and basically blended into other apps. So, while you're unlikely to ever get a Nokia Parking app yourself, you may some day in the not-too-distant future get a parking app from your local municipality which itself is using Nokia Parking in the background.

Got it? Good. Here's how it works in its current guise: using GPS coordinates the service determines all available parking nearby. Parking garages have information about their size represented, including minimum heights that could be problematic if you're of the SUV persuasion. But, even more exciting, the app also tracks, in real-time, available spaces just waiting for you to show off those parallel parking skills that earned you a reluctant smile from the judge on your drivers license test.

The service can also aggregate payment information, so once you're an appropriate distance from the curb you can tap a button on your phone and start paying for the parking spot. Then, when you leave, you can tap another button and your payment is automatically processed -- transparently. Or, if you're using the service on something like a 3G-connected navigation unit in your car, the car itself could automatically start and stop payment parking based on its location.

No more fumbling for change and no more hunting for parking spaces -- in theory. The service launches next month in a few cities across Europe and will be built out quickly after that. When will it come to your town? Well, that largely depends on when some local business wants to partners up with Nokia and develop the necessary services. That, we think, could take awhile.

Xi3 has been one of the more inventive PC builders in the field, designing its Modular Computers in the belief that small, more upgradable desktops are the way of the future. The company is planning two new systems to further that dream, the X3A and X7A, but it wants our help: it's running a Kickstarter funding drive until October 28th to assist the development and garner some early adopters. Put down $503 or $603 and you'll get the entry-level X3A, a dual-core 1.65GHz (likely AMD E-450-based) PC with 4GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD and either Linux or Windows installed; splurge with $1,103 or more and you'll get the more performance-driven X7A, which jumps to a quad-core chip with a 3.2GHz peak speed, a Windows-loaded 64GB SSD and faster graphics. Assuming Xi3 makes its target, we should see the X3A and X7A arrive in January and February respectively, with Kickstarter supporters beating the larger herd by a week. Even existing owners are accounted for through a Primary I/O Board upgrade, due before the end of this year, that carries more Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports. Crowdfunding is an unusual approach to buying that next PC, without the certainties of shopping at an online store -- but we're also dealing with an unusual PC from the get-go.

The only upgrades available for our puny human hands are gaming controller calluses, but if you're sporting an i-LIMB digits hand prosthesis, you can now grab a set of improved fingers. Touch Bionics'"smaller, lighter and more anatomically accurate" appendages are now available worldwide, as well as a new wrist-band unit which houses all the necessary computing power and juice for their function. Best of all, these developments allow more people to adopt the tech than the previous generation, including those with more petite hands or finger amputations closer to the knuckle. We don't know how much it'll cost for a fresh set, but we'll let health agencies and insurance companies deal with that part. With these upgrades and RSL Steeper's latest offering, it won't be long before our flesh-based variants are meager in comparison.

Monday, 10 September 2012

Floating through the air200 feet above the ground, I glide past a cluster of buildings, a stand of trees, the shoreline of a shimmering bay. A golf driving range drifts into view. Four men stop swinging their clubs and stare up, open-mouthed. In an age that's jaded by wall-to-wall entertainment, they're experiencing an all-too-rare sensation: pure awe. A giant oval shadow moves over them, and I'm gone.

If the guys at the golf club think a low pass by a 246-foot airship is impressive, they should check out the view from the pilot's seat. That's where I am, getting flight training in a zeppelin. It's an incredibly rare privilege. There are fewer licensed zeppelin pilots in the United States than there are Supreme Court justices. And there is only one zeppelin airship in the country.

For most people, the word zeppelin evokes one indelible image: the Hindenburg's flaming crash in 1937. That catastrophe struck the death knell for commercial airship travel, but the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company, which owned the doomed airship, hung in there. Out of the wreckage of postwar Germany, it prospered in a variety of ventures, among them selling and servicing Caterpillar construction equipment. Then it got back in the airship business, launching a helium-filled model called the Zeppelin NT (for "new technology") in 1997. Since then, the company has built three more airships, now flying in Japan and Europe.

To see the American zeppelin up close, I travel to San Francisco, where a company called Airship Ventures operates the Zeppelin NT Eureka. Mostly, Eureka earns its keep by carrying passengers on short sightseeing jaunts. A year ago, however, the company also began offering zeppelin-piloting classes. Customers who have a private pilot's license can spend two days learning about the zeppelin, including 3 hours riding as a passenger and a half-hour as the pilot.

At noon on a sunny Monday, I arrive at the front gate of Moffett Field, a former Navy base. I go to a classroom with five other students and chief pilot Fritz Günther, a severe-looking former flight instructor in the East German air force who introduces us to Eureka's basic principles. He explains that a Zeppelin NT is designed to fly a bit heavier than air, which makes it easier to handle on the ground (airships of the Hindenburg era required hundreds of men to hold them down). To get off the ground, the zeppelin is equipped with propellers that can swivel up and down to provide vertical thrust. Then, when the ship is in the air and moving at speed, it shifts into "flight configuration," in which the engines swivel to horizontal. In effect, the highly maneuverable Zeppelin NT is a cross between a dirigible and a tilt-rotor aircraft like the V-22 Osprey.

The next morning we finally get to climb aboard. Inside, the gondola is spacious, more like the interior of a yacht than an aircraft. It feels like a yacht too—even on the ground, the gondola's slow rolling motion reminds me of an ocean swell. The first student straps into the pilot's seat, with Günther in the co-pilot's chair to his right. The engines increase in pitch. Smoothly, we begin to rise vertically into the air. We start to move forward as well, as though ascending a giant escalator. The expanse of the airfield falls away, and soon we are coasting along at 1000 feet over Silicon Valley.

Those of us who aren't at the controls roam around the gondola, admiring the view. The windows slope outward, so we can look straight down and watch the scenery scroll beneath our feet. I open a window and stick my head out into the 40-mph slipstream like a dog on a road trip. Mountains lie to the west, the bay to the east, all of it soft and gauzy in the morning's lingering haze. As an Airship Ventures staffer hands out snacks and drinks, I feel like I'm at a party that happens to be dangling a quarter-mile up.

Eureka returns to the airfield and touches down; now it's my turn. I strap in and put on a headset. Almost immediately I'm struggling to keep up as Günther talks me through the controls. There are so many of them. One lever controls the angle of the two forward propellers; a nearby pair changes their thrust. A joystick on my left-hand side commands the rear propellers to pitch the nose up and down or to yaw side-to-side. On top of that, there are numerous switches and levers and toggles to control the pressure of the helium and the distribution of ballast. Helpfully, Günther tells me what to do; if I'm too slow, he reaches over and moves the control himself.

Up we go, climbing and gaining forward speed. I focus on the stick as I try to keep the enormous lumbering craft under control. With three engines, four propellers and a bag of helium gas whose buoyancy constantly changes depending on the temperature and pressure, piloting the zeppelin is like flying an airplane and making a scuba dive at the same time. As I try to figure it all out, Eureka bucks and weaves through the California sky like a spastic humpback whale.

As we reach 25 mph, Günther switches the ship to flight configuration. Now we're using the fins, not the engines, to control the ship's motion. I'm starting to get the hang of it. Part of the trick is to fly the zeppelin like you'd steer a sailboat, anticipating corrections by a few seconds. But I still can't seem to stop the ship from unexpectedly rearing up or shifting to one side. "Remember, it's not just you moving the ship," Günther says. "You've got air currents and lift from thermals."

I keep trying. Precision flying, this is not. But I've reached my moment of Zen: No matter how badly I fly this thing, it's still going to keep bobbing along. You can't flip a zeppelin upside down; you can't dive-bomb it into the earth. The ship is inherently stable. That's comforting to know. And the golfers below certainly seem more than impressed.

My time is almost up. I head back toward the airfield and start coaxing Eureka down, angling the thrusters forward and back, toggling the throttle, easing us slowly toward the tarmac and the waiting ground crew. A few yards off the ground, the ship hangs, hesitant, then a nudge of thrust brings the front wheel down. The crew grabs a line hanging from the nose, and we're back on the ground. I unstrap and climb out of the pilot's seat, still feeling lighter than air.

Jeff Wise is a contributing editor to Popular Mechanics and the author of Extreme Fear. For a daily dose of news on the science of fear

This is my first post in 2012, so let me start with this: Happy New Year!! and thanks for being with us in 2011!

If you're obsessed with a video game right now, you should take a break and check the list IGN has prepared for video game fans all over the world.

Let's not make a huge introduction over this. Many of these games have a release date. Watching these trailers, it seems that we have some big titles for 2012. If we're lucky, we may get even some nice surprises. Once again Happy New Year!! and I hope you will enjoy all the games below!

When Epic Games at GDC 2012 showed improvements on the classic Unreal Engine 3 graphic engine, Crytek has not missed any opportunity to show off the new features implemented inCryEngine 3, the video engine behind Crysis 2.

Since the yearly geek-fest that represents the Electronic Entertainment Expo comes to a jubilant finish, we strain by the silt and choose the top video game promulgations…

Assassin’s Creed III

Subversives, assassinators and malefic British!

Ubisoft’s newest episode in their knife euphoric diachronic saga engages us to Revolution-era. Estimating from this absolutely beautiful E3 preview, we can anticipate a good deal of military action, intrigue and nationalistic feeling.

Far Cry 3

This is other Ubisoft title that casts the gamer deeply in the essence of shadows and evil when they are pressured to battle for endurance on an apparently eden island. The greatest disclosure of the expo was the add-on of a four-player co-operative mode which allows you to squad with your pals to jab, dash and combust your foes in some gloriously crimson manners.

Star Wars 1313

LucasArts tries to delete the retentiveness of Kinect Star Wars with this challenging endeavor. Located on the first trilogy and with the number of the deed citing to an belowground grade on the planet Coruscant, we can anticipate loads of activity and confederacy when you step into the shoes of a bounty hunter hired by the capital’s felon netherworld. Diagrammatically brilliant and labored by a persuasive plot line, this is a game to look for when it's released.

Halo 4

Guess who's back! This is likely the most expected Xbox 360 title ever. If we talk about artwork and graphics, Halo 4 is a monumental step up from Halo Reach, although the gameplay itself did not required a lot of fiddling from the 1st Halo episode. To say it in a simple way, tell me who I need to kill and get out my way!

Resident Evil 6

I loved resident evil 4. So much suspense, blood and drama. The new RE trailer got me eager to play more of this series as Leon S. Everything is looking really extraordinary and explosively - and maybe one pace too distant from the series’ endurance repugnance roots - only we are still in full anticipative of other genre classic.

ZombiU

Nintendo’s show boasted numerous of their old darlings given a Wii U rework but none were as dazzling as this London-based zombie thriller. In spite of its honestly alarming nickname, the newest from Ubisoft Montpellier is advancing to be a bloodshed tastic first-person survival horror video game.

This is called The V Motion Project and it was created by a group of creative folks that loved technology, digital art and music. The V Motion Project is stunning, a visual spectacle, where the artist inside creates music with his body. The technology presented in the video was being played live via a digital interface that captures body motion. Also, there are design elements (real time tracking and sample dragging) that brings authenticity to the performance. Read more on the tech behind V Motion here. The project reminds me of Jean Michel Jarre's live performances.

Monday, 3 September 2012

The time spent on the Internet is becoming a concern for researchers and doctors. We are always work on multi-tasking, and this type of action increases our stress levels, it kills our creative thinking.

Compared to 1960, we consume three times more information. Is the human brain ready for this?

The Korean manufacturer launches LG Optimus VU, a smartphone with a 5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. The new model can be used with capacitive Rubberdium pencil. The device weighs 168 grams and measuring 139.6 x 90.4 x 8.5 mm.

Nokia has introduced to Barcelona exhibition the PureView 808 smartphone, which has a 41 MP camera.

Nokia surprised everyone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where they presented a smartphone that has a fabulous 41-megapixels camera resolution, the Nokia 808 PureView.

This looks suspicious if we remember that at this time top-level compact cameras stop at about at 16 MP. And if we take into account the price for this smartphone (around 450 euros plus taxes), very low compared with 41 MP cameras, it is natural to ask whether Nokia 808 PureView is serious business or marketing strategy.

before this phone, the best camera phone released from nokia was Nokia N8

US company developed a device that could radically change smartphones, tablets and laptops.

The wireless system can charge mobile phones, laptops or tablet in your purse or pants pockets.

The system, called WiTricity, uses magnetic induction. The gadget allows loading devices at a distance of 2.5 meters using so-called "repeater pad", which sends electricity throughout the house.Producers hope that future technology will be used to create wireless vacuums that takes power from the underlying platform.

The company has already signed a contract with a company in Taiwan to produce this system. More details about how the project on witricity.com

The collaboration between Nokia and Microsoft seems increasingly stronger. Since they became competitive on the smartphone market with the new Windows Phone, Nokia smartphone have become an inspiration to designers around the world.

After Nokia Snow Concept and Nokia Lumia Tablet, another designer has a new design: Nokia World 1000 including PureView technology. The phone could run Windows 8 and would have the same 41-megapixel camera found on Nokia 808 PureView.

Nokia World 1000 concept design features:

Dual Core Intel Atom processor clocked at 1.8 GHz Z2580

544MP2 PowerVR SGX graphics processor

2 GB of RAM

64 GB internal memory

VGA secondary camera for video calls

slot microSD

NFC, USB 3.0, FM radio, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS

qWERTY keyboard with joystick

The display could be a Super AMOLED pf 4.3 inch with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.

2012 saw the launch of Nintendo's Wii U - the first of the eighth generation games consoles.* By late 2013, it is joined by the PS4 and Xbox 720. These new machines offer substantial improvements in graphical power. The PS4, codenamed "Orbis", is built around an AMD x64 CPU and AMD Southern Islands GPU, handling screen resolutions of up to 4000 x 2000 pixels, as well as 3D gaming in full 1080p.* The Xbox 720, codenamed "Durango", is powered by a state-of-the-art IBM Power PC CPU, featuring 16 cores, alongside a Radeon HD 7000-series graphics card.*

Highly flexible, film-based touch sensors are entering the smartphone and tablet markets.* They are also extending touch capabilities into a range of new consumer and industrial products. Using roll-to-roll metal mesh technology, they provide a high-performance alternative to existing touch sensors. Larger, lighter, sleeker, curved and edgeless designs can now be developed for handheld devices. Thinner sensor stacks with flawless touch performance, excellent optical clarity, low sheet resistance and low power consumption are enabling designers to turn unique, futuristic concepts into functional designs at lower total system costs compared to previous market alternatives.

Whenever you have loved wearing jewelery and marveled why it can not imitative eye and mouth motions just as a bodiless Furby, you are lucky. Japanese Islands has come to your saving with these crazy cool rings that convert your thumbs into a robotic face. The Keio University appears to be the perfect location if you are looking for some technology, gadgets and gizmos fun.